It's a wise custom to end an old year and begin a new one with serious self-reflection. What did you learn this year that can improve your life and make you a better person?

Start by examining the way you think and feel about your job, your relationships, and yourself. After all, the single most important factor in personal happiness and your impact on others is your attitude.

In the geometry of life, the axiom is "positive attitudes produce positive results." They make success more likely, failures less harmful, pleasures more frequent, and pain more bearable. Some people tend to bring warm sunshine wherever they go; others bring cold chills. What do you bring?

To find out where you can improve, take an honest inventory of your predispositions, the attitude you're most likely to start with.

. Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic?. Do you tend to assume the best or expect the worst of people?. Is your first instinct to be empathetic or judgmental?. Is your first instinct to be supportive or critical?. Do you send the message that you enjoy life or that you're barely enduring it?. Do you come across as the captain of your own ship or simply a passenger?

Wherever you are on the positive-attitude spectrum, think how much better things could be if you were more consistently and self-consciously optimistic, empathetic, supportive, grateful, enthusiastic, hopeful, and cheerful.

So why not resolve to think, act, and speak more positively about yourself, your family, your coworkers, and everyone else in your life?

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comments:

. Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic?I like the list but still. Do you tend to assume the best or expect the worst of people? Some people are up to no good assume the best but keeps an eye on them :). Is your first instinct to be empathetic or judgmental? Actually both and that's a bad trait of my character: I tend to think that I act emphatically by being judgemental which antagonizes people. Is your first instinct to be supportive or critical?See above I often confuse being critical for being supportive, but then I value honesty in a relationship. Do you send the message that you enjoy life or that you're barely enduring it? ha ha yes I do enjoy life but sometimes it's just too much and them maybe I make a sour face. Do you come across as the captain of your own ship or simply a passenger? You have to be the captain their is no other captain in your life if you are not in charge the only destination is: the bottom

Hi Christine,I love this post. That has been my focus starting the new year. 2008 I was consumed with grief and not giving out much light and love to others. I have begun to feel happiness again and will strive to project it onto everyone I am in contact with. You are very welcomed for the awards. You deserve them for the great work you do. Look for more to come your way.Happy New YearJanet :)

Greetings Wizard, Thanks so much for sharing! I find myself doing this inventory periodically... just to keep me in check. Lol - (consciously aware.) "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom" :)

The way we get to live forever is through memories stored in the hearts and souls of those whose lives we touch. That's our soul print.It's our comfort, our emotional nourishment at the end of the day and the end of a life. How wonderful that they are called up at will and savored randomly. It seems to me we should spend our lives in a conscious state of creating these meaningful moments that live on.Memories matter- (Leeza Gibbons)